Markus Burton injury update: Latest on star Notre Dame PG
Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry still does not know when Markus Burton will return from his knee injury, but he did offer some specifics when he spoke to reporters for the first time since Burton went down on Nov. 26 in Las Vegas.
The sophomore point guard, reigning Atlantic Coast Conference Rookie of the Year and preseason All-ACC selection suffered an MCL injury, Shrewsberry confirmed Thursday afternoon. He will not need surgery. The Irish don’t know the extent of what he’s dealing with beyond that, but they’re going to give him all the time he needs.
“His future is more important than winning one or two extra games,” Shrewsberry said. “We care more about his future than we care about anything else. His health comes first. All of our guys, in that way.”
Notre Dame has lost four-straight games since Burton went down and five in a row overall, dropping to 4-5 on the season after starting 4-0. Before his injury, Burton averaged 21.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.6 steals per game.
Still, the Irish are not going to rush their star’s progress.
“When he’s ready, he’ll be back, but we’re gonna make sure that he’s 100 percent ready,” Shrewsberry said. “I just don’t know when that timeline’s gonna be.”
Shrewsberry on plan without Burton: ‘How you competed against those teams, it gives you hope’
Shrewsberry was disappointed with Notre Dame’s performance at Georgia in a 69-48 loss, but he wasn’t surprised by it.
The Irish were playing their fourth game away from home in eight days. Players were, as Shrewsberry put it, physically unable to compete with the Bulldogs. Combined with Burton’s injury, they didn’t have much of a chance.
“When you look at the grand scheme of things, in the NBA, we used to call them schedule losses,” Shrewsberry said. “Sometimes you get a schedule loss. I hated that it happened, because I wanted to go in there and compete. But dudes were gassed, man.”
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The real indication, Shrewsberry believes, came in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning against Houston.
“You kind of told on yourselves,” Shrewsberry said. “They’re one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country, and it was their third-lowest offensive rebound percentage in the last six years. We can do it. We can do it.”
Notre Dame lost to Houston by 11, Creighton by 4 and Rutgers by 1 in overtime. They were different games, but the Irish will take any positive spin they can get as they look to keep their season alive with Burton on the shelf.
“How you competed against those teams, it gives you hope,” Shrewsberry said. “Playing those teams should give you confidence that we can do really good things as a group. I’ve loved our resilience and I’ve loved how we’ve stayed together.”
Shrewsberry also noted that since leaving Las Vegas and Athens, Notre Dame has had its first real opportunity to make adjustments for a sans-Burton lineup and practice those adjustments on the court.
The Irish will put that to the test at noon ET on Saturday, when they host Syracuse at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend.
